​Snobby, indie music site Pitchfork awarded Surfer Blood's debut album, Astro Coast, an 8.2 rating, also tagging as "Best New Music." However, if you've followed the bands meteoric rise, thanks in large part to Pitchfork, this doesn't necessarily come as a surprise. The site has shown its love for the band time and time again.

But it's unfair to think of Astro Coast as reactionary in some way to the more overtly ambitious indie stars of last year-- there are no chamber sections, no pocket harmonies, no integration of West African rhythms (ok, there's some of that). But ambition can just as easily manifest itself as a desire to create a relentlessly catchy, "classic indie" album in your own dorm room, and if that's what Surfer Blood set out to do, Astro Coast succeeds wildly.

Though we have to lambaste Cohen for comparing Surfer Blood to the much less talented Weezer. Sorry emo kids, Rivers Cuomo has as much talent as Britney Spears. Yea, Weezer's songs are catchy, but they are hardly memorable or interesting. Let's give these kids a chance before we start comparing them to hacks.

Anyway, the album debuted last year when the band released it independently and distributed out at shows and local record stores -- hence why we named it one of the best local albums of 2009 (thanks Pitchfork for arriving late to this gravy train).

But for those outside of the South Florida area, the album is now available nationally via Kanine Records.